ارزیابی خصوصیات خندق ها در استان اردبیل به منظور مهار و تثبیت

Gully erosion is a serious problem of many watersheds in Iran, and the particularly in Ardabil province. This research has been focus on gullies identification and classification as a first step in evaluating gully processes for control of gully erosion in Ardabil province. Areas over than 500 hectares and their dominant climates were specified with usage of climate map. From each region, one representative gully and two repeated ones were chosen for study. These gully areas have been classified base on cluster analysis. The width section of these gullies are U-shaped in northern areas and V-shaped in southern areas. In view point of their depth, they are in the intermediate gullies (1-10m). The gullies are formed in rangeland and in dry land farming’s. In Ardabil, the appearance and characteristic of gullies encouraged by some local factors, such as erodible lithology and soils, heavy rainfall in some areas and mainly the anthropic influence, represented by land use changes, degradation of vegetation cover, overgrazing and trampling by cattle on the pastures, leaking the water of irrigation from the lower agricultural area, the road network and up-and-down hill farming which supports flow concentration. These areas, which are classified base on cluster analysis, are in 2 classes, one with ultracold semi-arid climate in south area and the other with Cold-arid in north. Gullies can be prevented in the studied area by maintaining ground cover, prevention of surface runoff concentration, land rehabilitation, controlling over grazing by livestocks and improper road constructions.